I find this very easy to believe and it is the story of the poor major oil producing countries. In Nigeria, 25% of the national budget is dedicated to the personal expenses of the lawmakers by law. The rest makes its way into a very corrupt system that the multinational oil corporations are complicit in building after infiltrating the government and civil service at all levels [wikileaks]. They easily avoid accountability for persistent decade-long oil spills that exceed the Gulf of Mexico incident each year. In the long term, this 'oil wealth' is toxic to the society, infrastructure and environment of these countries.

The demand for oil is in every sense an economic addiction and the governments of the industrialised world will suspend all principle to keep the pipelines flowing. They empower ruthless sociopaths with billions of dollars and feign outrage when these despots hold their people hostage and slaughter thousands to maintain their hold on power. Why are the world's most dangerous men invariably from major oil producing countries?

I think the capitalist ideal of money as the only measure of success is a very irresponsible way to run a planet. In the past at least, the system seemed to work in favour of a few countries that were first at the controls. Now that there is just so much momentum that this ship has started to fly itself, I find it amusing to watch the US and Europe scrambling to come to grips with just a small part of the helplessness of the other 5 billion.